Party Animal
by Laryna6
Summary: The thing about Dante is that he's weird, you know? And crazy, absolutely crazy. Enzo manga on his meal ticket and how he doesn't quite get the guy. Maybe no one can.


_Disclaimer: I don't own Devil May Cry. _

_This was written for the fic challenge community on livejournal called alphabetasoup, where you have a prompts list with words starting with the 26 letters of the alphabet. _

_D is for Dionysus._

_-_

The thing about Dante-well, there were many things about Dante, a lot of them very weird, but he wasn't going to list them all, he didn't have all day-was that he wasn't that much of a party animal.

Most mercenaries were live hard, play hard. Of course, Dante wasn't an ordinary mercenary, as much as him taking normal jobs would make Enzo's life easier. Maybe this was normal for people who dealt with the weird stuff.

Or maybe it was that Dante was weird stuff himself, but Enzo didn't go into that. None of his business.

Sure, you'd think Dante would be the life of the party. The way he walked, the way he dressed, the way he looked, the way women threw themselves at him, and he wasn't a dead stick, he appreciated the female body. But that wasn't the way it was.

He'd rather stay in wherever he was crashing currently (he went through places like a wrecking ball) and drink tomato juice than party with Enzo at the Love Planet.

Enzo was there whenever he could afford it. He'd invited Dante along, of course. He'd thought Dante would agree like a shot. After all, what the hell else did he have to do? Didn't have a TV, was new in town, but he'd had to do some serious wheedling, ended up threatening he wouldn't help Dante find a place to stay if he didn't come.

Once he was there, he'd sat in the corner, drinking and staring into space. Drinking Bloody Marys and then he'd ordered some of the worst beer on the menu. After tasting that, Enzo had vetoed that selection (Dante was crazy), and ordered vodka. Lots and lots of vodka.

Another thing about Dante was that though he acted stubborn as an ox, he was pretty easy to get to do stuff. He might say no at first, but if he knew inside he needed to do something, or wanted to do it, he'd let Enzo bully him into it easy.

Enzo had wanted to see what his new friend was like drunk, that was a pretty important thing to know about someone. If he loosened up, than that would be great, but if he got angry he'd keep him away from the hard stuff to make sure no one got shot.

Dante kept pouring down bottle after bottle and the girls started coming to watch.

Before, when Enzo had tried to start up a conversation Dante would reply flippantly (he was almost always flippant), witty as hell, but the conversation would quickly die away, Dante descending into monosyllables. It got worse right before that beer. Enzo wondered if it was something he'd said. He'd been talking about how they were partners now and Dante had been all… but he didn't seem to _not_ want to be partners.

Another thing about Dante was that he wasn't just hot, he was beautiful. Dante had bragged that if he didn't like killing things he might be one of those really expensive whores, and Enzo could see that easy. They'd line up to be played with by Dante, and he'd string them along, break hearts, because the thing about Dante was that he was a predator.

So anyway, the girls came over because they were hoping after Dante got drunk he'd take one of them upstairs, and they all wanted to be the one, being all fluttering their eyelashes at him. Made Enzo jealous. Look at them, throwing themselves at the guy like… what they were. They never did that for him unless he flashed green. But they would have heard how much Dante got paid for that job…

So they teased him and he teased them back, leading them on and whistling at whoever was stripping.

Enzo was glad he'd loosened up and was having a good time, looking forward to a few girls… And then he noticed that Dante had been drinking vodka like it was water for quite a while, and was acting, well, conscious. Drunk, really drunk, but not horizontal.

He was nibbling on this girl's ear, and she looked like she'd won the lottery and led him upstairs, a couple others following. The flock of girls around Enzo dissipated, leaving a few of the ones who were more friendly, or willing to act like it for his money.

So he went to head upstairs and there was a scream.

How the hell did you accidentally break someone's leg having sex?

He carried her down, smiling in that a way that looking at it, you'd forgive him anything, even though he was a bad boy, and she had a hell of a bite mark on her neck, too. Dante called an ambulance, paid for everything, acted like it had just been drunken enthusiasm, but Enzo knew that there was more to it.

After that, it got really hard to get Dante to join in and party. He'd say hello to the girls, drink a little, but usually he'd barge in, find Enzo, go on mission, whatever. Business. He'd let Enzo cajole him into sticking around sometimes, but usually only when he was really freaking bored, to the point he was desperate for something to do. Only when there hadn't been a mission in a while.

The guy wasn't a monk, he bought a pool table and ordered Enzo to come by for games. He also bought a lot of expensive music stuff. Enzo wasn't any judge, but it sounded damn good to him.

The girls got the idea he liked it really rough after that, and didn't try to get him upstairs. If they got injured, they wouldn't be able to make money. Enzo tried to get a few of them to put the moves on Dante, shame to see a guy like that not getting any, but he turned down even Minx.

Who'da thought there was a downside to super strength? Dante took it too hard, though. The thing about him was he was so fucking serious, even when he acted like he wasn't.

Guy had secrets: when Enzo tried to get him to talk about his past Dante pushed him away. Enzo got that people had boundaries, you had to respect them. Still.

He felt sorry for the guy. He might have the body of a god, hell, maybe he was a god, or something like Hercules, but he didn't party. The only time he had a real grin on his face was when he was killing shit.

The thing about Dante was… Enzo was the closest thing to a friend he had in the world, and he couldn't help him with any of this. Dante wouldn't let him, but Enzo knew he probably wouldn't get it anyway.

Still, he was a friend, so… he was a good agent. Carrot and the stick approach, sometimes he felt like a lion tamer.

The last time Dante had asked him to save some beer, he'd come back pissed because a demon had hired him. And Enzo had been keeping the girls ready, too.

Some shit went down after that. Dante wouldn't talk about it, but he seemed a little happier.

Enzo remembered the guy that hadn't been Dante, but had been looking for him. Or maybe he'd just been drunker than he'd thought. But if there really was someone out there who understood Dante, than Enzo was more than a little jealous of him.

He'd managed to get Dante loosen up enough Enzo managed to drag him down to Love Planet the next night and Dante was the life of the party. Sung something by Elvis on the karaoke machine and threw clothing out into the audience.

Now that was how to party.


End file.
